Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial Visit this site spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also among the very first considerable financiers in, along with primary executive officer of, the electrical car maker Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric vehicles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was reluctant to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he looked for the greater economic chances offered in the United States. Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that supplied maps and business directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established Take a look at the site here an online financial services company, X.com, which later ended up Discover more being Pay, Friend, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humankind needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the fantastic expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing quick transportation in between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
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Dragon can carry as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to lower the expense of spaceflight by establishing a completely multiple-use rocket that might lift off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric cars and truck company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.